Tuesday, September 6, 2011

A good weekend... + recipe for wee ones!

I did some sewing!

It was me-n-Kyle’s anniversary and we ditched the kid and went to Disneyland. Just kidding, actually it was kind of traumatic because Zoey spent the night at my mom’s house and it was her first night away from us. We missed her so hard. When we were at Disneyland, it seemed like we were constantly saying things like “I wonder if Zoey will like classic Mickey”, “Wouldn’t that be neat if Zoey pulled the sword out of the stone?”, “What’s a good age to bring her for the first time? 4? 5?” and so on. We’re so obnoxious, I know. We went on the new Star Tours for the first time. I never go on that ride because those kinds of rides give me motion sickness. I can do roller coasters with no problem, but anything that has video or spins, no way. But I just had to see what it was like all revamped! Bad gravy, man. About 30 seconds into it I had to find a focal point and stare at it. By the time the Yoda hologram came on, I had to close my eyes and keep them closed for the rest of the ride and I got all sweaty. Luckily, I snapped out of pretty quick and enjoyed Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, Indiana Jones, and It’s a Small World. After Disneyland we went out for a nice, quiet dinner at Houston’s. The whole point of having Zoey spend the night at my mom’s was so we could stay out as late as we want and sleep in as late as we want. We ended up in bed by 11 and neither of us could sleep past 8!

After we were reunited with our child on Sunday morning, we headed out to the Orange International Street Fair. Kyle especially looks forward to this every year. They block off the Orange Circle and surrounding streets and there are vendors selling different kinds of food depending on what street you are on. Mexican street has tacos and churros, American street has BBQ and funnel cakes, Ginza Street has sushi, Denmark Street has ebelskivers, and so on. I like Greek Street and my favorite thing to get is loukoumades (deep fried balls of dough soaked in honey).

You know when you eat like crap for a couple days, all you want to eat is veggies? After a day at Disneyland and the street fair, I was there! I made this yummy open faced sammie for dinner Sunday night. It had avocado, thinly sliced apple, cucumber, and radish, micro greens, some goat cheese crumbles, and a drizzle of olive oil. It was so tasty, I made it for lunch the next day too! I got the idea for it from Oh Joy’s “Oh Joy eats lunch with” feature.

And speaking of making lunch, I made Zo the best pasta! I would call it mac and cheese, but Trader Joe’s didn’t have macaroni, so I used a different pasta and pulsed it in the food processor to chop it up a litlte smaller. And just in case you have a little one and would like to sneak some more veggies into their diet, I thought I would share this recipe. I didn’t take pictures as I made it because I didn’t plan on sharing the recipe until I saw how she devoured it! I also didn’t really measure anything, so do everything depending on your tastes. Ready? Here we go!

Pasta:

Cook the pasta of your choice (I didn’t measure, but I used about 2/3 of the bag) according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, shred, dice, or slice whatever veggies you want to add in. I shredded zucchini and sweet potato. Set those aside. I set aside some fresh spinach for later.

Sauce:

Make a roux by melting 1-2 tbsp of butter and 1-2 tbsp of flour in a medium-sized sauce pan. Let that cook for a couple minutes while stirring it.

Gradually add in milk. I used about a cup and a half, maybe 2 cups. When I am making sauces like this, I like to add a little bit of milk, then stir, then a little bit more, then stir, and so on, to make sure it stays creamy and smooth and not lumpy.

Cook the milk for several minutes until it starts to thicken. Once it’s thick enough to coat a wooden spatula, add in your choice of shredded cheese. I used about half a cup of a swiss & gruyere mix, but any cheese would be yummy. Stir that and let the cheese melt, then take it off the heat.

Next, put a couple of big handfuls of fresh spinach into the food processor, and add about 1/3 of the sauce. The liquid helps. I pulverized the bejesus out of the spinach. Zoey still doesn’t have back teeth (they are starting to come in now), so eating leafy things is hard for her and sometimes she ends up choking. So you can be the judge of what baby can handle. To be safe, I processed this mixture until the spinach was practically disintegrated. It looked like pesto. (side note: I had baked some kale chips earlier, and I tossed a handful of those into the food processor too)

Add this spinach/sauce mixture back to the rest of the sauce, using a rubber spatula to scrape the inside of the food processor bowl so you get every last bit.

Stir the veggies you prepped earlier into the sauce.

Toss the pasta and sauce together.

Bake:

Pour the pasta and sauce mixture into a baking dish.

At this point you can top with some more cheese, or bread crumbs or whatever you want. Zoey loves goat cheese, so I sprinkled goat cheese on top. I thought she’d be able to taste it better that way (instead of putting it in the cheese sauce).

Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, just until the cheese on top melts.

This recipe made a medium-sized baking dish full of pasta. Zoey can eat it for lunch during the week, and there’s enough for my niece to have some too.

Sweet post! We still don't take Chamila to D-land. She's a sensitive little one and gets easily freaked out, even on the kiddie rides. In her defense a lot of those rides' climatic parts are pretty dark and intense.

Thanks KevBot! I don't blame her, all the old Disney movies have some intense parts. I don't even like watching some of them, like the ones where the parents die and stuff. What the hell is that shit?! :)